It's of no surprise to me that this story originated from a New England scribe. Having seen the game myself, then consulting with a source of mine, initially there was indeed some concern that Moore was pounding his glove when he was preparing to deliver his 4-seamer.

But as it turns out after reviewing the game on video, almost all of the BoSox knocks that day came on "cock-shot" fastballs, ( hittable pitches up in the zone that caught a good portion of the plate) with the exception of one hit by Youkilis that came on a change-up.

I think sometimes people forget the fact that Moore only has 4 regular season ML starts under his belt, and is still in the process of developing and refining his repetoire as well as his command. True enough, he did burst on the scene and caught a lot of people by surprise last year with that playoff win on the road against Texas, but that opportunity came to him solely because the Rays used up their top tier starters down the stretch trying to nail down that playoff spot, plus I think they caught TEX a bit by surprise because nobody had seen much of him at the ML level prior to that start.

It's quite commonplace to see a rookie hurler struggle with mislocation, even if he brings "easy gas" such as Moore. He's got a free and easy delivery and can touch the upper 90's with relative ease, and because of his mechanics, the 4-seamer gets on batters in a hurry. From what I've been told, by all accounts he's a good kid and has great character for such a young guy, but I think we'll have a better barometer of what he can do once he goes through the league and gets more innings under his belt.

I agree wholeheartedly on the breakdown of Moore, and the thing is, young pitchers today tend to have so much natural ability with the fastball, that itís almost always the secondary stuff that suffers early. To be a successful starter, you have to be able to locate at least three pitches consistently for strikes, as youíre going to turn the lineup over three times a start, which allows Big League hitters ample time to get some looks at you.

As much flack as the Red Sox have taken of late with the locker room stuff and the injuries, they still have some professional bats in that lineup (Gonzalez being one of them, obviously). You can pretty much say that about the AL East and pretty much the entire American League with the exception of a few teams. Turning the lineup over multiple times a game in the AL is much more difficult than in the NL, where you have more breaks in the lineup with the pitcher and some weaker bottom-of-the-order guys, thus being able to pick your spots. Iím not saying the Kershaws or the Cains or the Strasburgs couldnít hold their own in the AL, because they sure as hell could, but I do think that young pitchers coming up in the American League have it a lot harder.

I trust that Maddon and his guys in Tampa will figure these subtleties out with Moore, much they way they have with their younger pitchers in the past. And as you state, Moore seems to be a kid with a solid work ethic and a desire to be a strong starting pitcher. Coming up in the AL East, heíll probably get more of the baptism-by-fire, on-the-job training, which may not be a bad thing, actually.

I don't care if Moore throws cock fastball's up in the zone or down the heart of the plate. He throws too damn hard to get shelled. Those hitters had to know the 4 seamer was coming. Those Boston hitters aren't anything special anymore.

Im well aware of what it takes to be in the bigs, on the fringe, a guy the directors just keep around cause they like em, or just a stiff filling out a short season roster. IDK what he was doing with his offspeed stuff the other day. He throws an easy high 90's. There is maybe one or two guys in the minors that throw EASY high 90's period and prolly NOONE doing it lefty handed. Matt Moore is not one of those guys you sneak in your ratty fucking local A ball stadium and see touching 98 that hits and walks batting order in the 8th inning of a shitfest. There is a huge huge difference between Matt Moore and the kind of kid you see throwing hard on every minor league pitching staff. Matt Moore is the PREMIUM of ELITE talent. Even big leaguers can't just square him up CONSISTENTLY if he is throwing a 4 seamer unless they know its coming. Get the MLB package and watch daily. There might be 5 hitters in the entire league that can have a good at bat 40% of the time off high level pitching. Those hitters aren't as good as you might think. That isn't Bill Pulsipher out there.

alexizorbas wrote on Sat, 21 April 2012 16:58

He throws too hard to get shelled? Huh? This is major league baseball. If you can't locate you can't pitch, bottom line. There are plenty of guys throwing mid-upper 90s that never play in the bigs.

Let me clarify jic, "EASY" means it looks like he is playing catch. "EASY" high 90's means he throws high 90's effortlessly. That specifically is what makes him different from your typical prospect. There may be 5 or 6 pitchers we have seen in the last 20 years with an arm like his. Those kind of guys don't have to live on the corners or change speeds all the time. As long as he just shows a change up and breaking ball he can be good and very effective. TO put it more simple, he is a left handed Verlander with better mechanics. I've seen Verlander shut down plenty of lineups without his A or B game type of stuff.

Unless you hit 95+ on a regular basis, location is the key to success. I played against Mike Wuertz (A's, Cubs) and he could touch low to mid 90's and I shelled the guy. He had zero movement on his pitches. See the ball, hit the ball. On the other hand, my coach (who was a freaking expert on the game) would throw bp Moyer style. Hated it. He could locate and it is impossible to sit back and wait. Wrote up a play on here a couple years ago about this exact topic. Put Moyer against a good fastball hitting team and I'll take Moyer all day long. Look at Garcia. The guy is totally lost. He is either in the dirt or belt high down the middle. Not many Verlander type guys out there that can just lean back and throw flames. More often than not you have a Lowe type guy that has a way of keeping the ball out of the zone or has some type of movement to be successful. Rivera would be another one of those guys

You make some very valid points in your post, Gimbeaux. I saw Moore's outing last night vs. Twins, and it looked to me like he was trying to get too cute out there. Instead of going right after the hitters aggressively and establishing his mode of attack, he was pitching to the sides of the plate, missing wide a lot and getting himself into a lot of deep counts as a result, walking 3 with 2 punchouts.

Despite the relatively subpar outing, he was still in a position to get the W when the Rays took advantage of a misplay that was later changed to a hit, and capitalized to take the lead in the 6th. Tough break for Twins RHP Hendriks, who battled and pitched his ass off despite bringing average stuff to the mound. The Aussie wound up wearing the 4 earned runs after that official scorers reversal would have initially made those runs unearned. Rays bullpen didn't get the job done so MM winds up with a no decision.

He's still cutting his teeth at the ML level and he's young, but I'm told he's a good listener but also easily influenced by some of the other guys in the rotation. That's to be expected with a rookie.

Plus, I understand where collect-on-Tuesday is coming from as well. When David Price began his first season in the rotation, he was routinely throwing 85-90% fastballs per start, in the velocity range of 95-97 on average. Initially it was enough for him to get by with because lots of hitters had trouble catching up with that high octane gas. But eventually he had to develop his secondary pitches in order to become more effective. ML hitters will eventually sit dead red on that fastball if they know it's coming 90% of the time. I think regardless of how hard a guy throws or how many pitches he has in his repetoire, the key is being able to locate.

Collect I agree partially with your analysis. Obviously being lefty and having an explosive easy fastball will bail you out much more often than if you are sweaty Freddy throwing 87. With that said, you still cant just rear back and throw 4 seamers down the cock. It's not gonna pan out I'm sorry, its.gonna catch up to you eventually. He's a young pitcher, and he has elite stuff and will make an incredible starter down the line, sooner rather than later I expect. But to say MLB hitters can't hit a 97mph 4 seamer down the heart is silly. They're in the majors because they can hit fastball, not because they can hit sliders or change ups.

In this day in age, if you throw 95 AND can throw a strike on command, you'll be fine. Bad location is a far better flaw to have than walking dudes. I'm willing to bet that 90% of the criticism we have when calling out a poor outing originally stems from not the center cut fastball double he allowed with two dudes on but the 5 pitch walk to lead-off the inning or dicking around with the 8th place hitter and giving in with a four-seamer after being ahead in the count 1-2.

There is still a good deal of speculation out there on why Matt Moore is struggling. I had an opportunity to watch his last start on Thursday vs. BOS as well as seeing all his starts this season. Although he posted a decent pitching line with 3 runs allowed in 6 innings with 1 walk and 8 strikeouts vs BOS, he still took the loss, throwing 67 of 106 pitches for strikes and giving up 2 bombs.

We previously discussed Moore's FB command issues and although it doesn't necessarily translate directly into walks, it has cost him overall. I noticed he's been missing up in the zone a lot, especially on his arm side of the plate (balls away from RHH), which is due to inconsistent release points and follow through.

Dug up a stat on him the other night which detailed location of his 401 fastballs to right handed batters this season:

193 were thrown to the upper 1/3 of the zone and off the plate..48.5%

138 were thrown to the middle of the zone..34.5%

70 were thrown to the lower 1/3 and off the plate..17.0%

If you combine the first two stats, it translates into Moore throwing 83% of his fastballs either to the middle of the zone or up.

I'm sure this is not by design, but more because he can't help himself mechanically. When he finishes out front in his delivery, the ball flies out of his hand nicely. I haven't lost sight of the fact that he is a rookie, with minimal innings under his belt but adjustments will have to be made. I mean, if you can't command your # 1 pitch, your secondary pitches will be decidedly worse.

Obviously he's just not found "it" yet. Appreciate the work you've detailed here in terms of his misses.

Overall the HR numbers allowed have been atrocious, nearly triple his career mark in the minors in HR/9 allowed and his K to BB ratio is about 1/4 of what he was posting in the minors/small cup of coffee in MLB last year.